Tag Archives: Active Naturists

After participating in the Naked Volleyball Superbowl last year, I got the volley bug and now want to visit as many such events as possible. Before I get to the report from Volleyball Super Bowl South, I’d like to announce a few other naked volleyball tournaments in which my friends and I are going to partake this year:

– Banana Rum Cup on the weekend of 20-21 June at White Tail Resort in Virginia (this one I personally will skip, because I don’t want to miss a trail race that’s become a yearly tradition);

Welcome to Miami! And if you think that glamorous and crowded Miami Beach is the only way to enjoy the tropical seaside, you are wrong. Key Biscayne island lies south-east of Miami Downtown, close enough to see its skyline,

but wild and remote enough to enjoy a small secluded beach with barely anyone else in sight, and totally naked if you will. (By the way, the first photo and the one below were taken at the same spot, just at different times of the day, so you can see how tides change.)

The northeast point of Key Biscayne, right by the fossilized reef, has a history of nude recreation, but it’s not an official nudist beach, while Virginia Key just north of it did have an official nudist beach until 1980’s. The place is known as Bear Cut beach. Maybe “bare” would be more appropriate than “bear” here, though far not all visitors bare it all, and…

Wannsee, or more specifically Großer Wannsee, is a relatively large lake in the westernmost part of Berlin. It hosts Europe’s longest inland beach – Strandbad Wannsee, but we usually hang out at more secluded spots north of it. Strandbad Wannsee is just one of 2 or 3 beaches in Berlin with an entrance fee, which I assume supports facilities and cleaning operation; naturist part (or FKK, as it is usually referred to in Germany) is in the northern side of the beach (i.e., to the right, if you face the lake). There are a few small beaches to the north of Strandbad Wannsee, which are free of charge and free of clothes as well 🙂

River Snack boat delivers ice-cream, beer and snacks, including Berlin’s famous currywurst.

As you’ve figured from the photos, our favorite way to get there was kayak.

There is a very pretty bog not too far from Moscow, and it was one of the most interesting places where I’ve enjoyed outdoors the natural way, naked. It is a peat bog called Sima at the Zvenigorod Biological Station of Moscow State University, where I spent quite a lot of time during summer practices in my student year. It was so nice to come back there a few years later. Student excursions aside, it’s an ideal place to find oneself at peace with nature.

Sima is a relatively small peat moss bog surrounded by fir-tree forest.

The bog is outlined by a stretch of smaller-than-usual birches and pines, as well as blueberries and rhododendron. There were no berries of course, when I visited in May, but rhododendron bush was in full bloom.

Though transition between the forest and the bog appears relatively smooth, there’s no transition between…

After spending 2 days of snorkeling at the Red Sea, I had to move further, and the next stop on my trip through Israel was the Dead Sea. I stayed at a friend of my new friend who brought me to Ga’ash beach in Tel Aviv. He lived in Ein Gedi kibbutz, which is a part of luscious Ein Gedi oasis off the shores of the Dead Sea. The sea-lake itself is of course the major attraction in the area, and I will talk about it in my next post, but there is also a nice opportunity to see local flora and fauna on a daily hiking trip. Ein Gedi nature reserve has two spring-fed streams with flowing water year-round: Nahal David and Nahal Arugot. The former is much more popular, and I was advised not to go there, as tourists pour in big portions coming with organized…

The last (for now!) blogpost of our Hawaiian adventures is about a pretty but also somewhat uncanny rainforest on Puna side of the Big Island that we explored using Ka-hau-a-Le’a trail, which is no longer recommended for visits by authorities and is officially closed. However, it is definitely among the most interesting hikes that I’ve done in my life thanks to a combination of several factors. The guidebook ‘Hawaii, the Big Island Revealed‘ was our inspiration again.

The day was rainy but very warm, appropriately for a tropical rainforest and that part of the island of Hawaii particularly, so the most appropriate attire was just our bare skin – you know it’s my favorite one anyways!

So, I kept my clothes (i.e., only shorts on that day) dry in the backpack for later 🙂

Given that the trail is formally closed and conditions were muddy, we didn’t expect to see many hikers (and we…

The painting in our room set our mood for another naturist adventure 🙂

As we arrived late in the evening, we were welcomed by a chorus of coquí frogs.

It’s an invasive species introduced from Puerto Rico, but I loved the ambient sound they provided (and to their defense, they haven’t really brought any harm to local ecology as far as I know). I managed to track down one of coquí frogs near the pool, which was impossible according to Tod – not if you’re a zoologist like me 😀

After that, we relaxed in the sauna, and then Tod did a Watsu session for me (“a form of aquatic bodywork used for deep relaxation and passive aquatic therapy… in which a practitioner gently cradles, moves, stretches, and massages a…

Hope you didn’t think that my story about the Big Island, Hawaii, ended
at the beach next to Kona airport
😉 The island is indeed big and very diverse. Even this beach at Kona side of the island looked totally different from Makalawena. It’s a cozy cove with yellow sand surrounded by black rocks and trees.

After Maui, I headed to the island of Hawaii aka Big Island. It was a real pleasure to see my first destination on the island – a beautiful secluded beach called Makalawena – from the airplane upon approach to Kona airport. It came highly recommended by two friends, and my guidebook (‘Hawaii, the Big Island Revealed‘) said that it was “the choicest beach on the island [to many who]… don’t mind walking to it”.

It looked very pretty from the air, with its clear turquoise water, white sand and coconut palm-trees… but I could also see a pretty long road and trails going through black lava field that lead to it! The book certainly had the point, but there was another promising note, which I have to cite here, as it’s quite funny:

By the way, because it’s so isolated, people sometimes travel light to this beach, omitting…

When you’re in Hawaii, you’ll quickly learn the shaka sign, aka “hang loose”, and the perfect place to let it all hang loose is the Little Beach on the southern shore of Maui. The beach is quite small indeed, especially in comparison to the neighboring Big Beach, and it gets pretty crowded on weekends. Nevertheless, it’s easy to find a cozy, somewhat private spot, thanks to the trees and their massive roots that create sort of alcoves at the edge of the beach.

This place has a long hippie history, so the laid-back atmosphere is still prevalent there.

This beach is perfect for snorkeling and body-surfing, and when conditions are right, you could surf there too. I really wanted to surf there naked, just like native Hawaiians did, but unfortunately we didn’t have luck with the waves that day.